Disclaimer: I do not own The Underland Chronicles or its characters or anything of the sort; it all belongs to Suzanne Collins and her amazing brain. I'm just writing a pitiful fanfic. :)
Author's Note: For the first time in a while, I was skimming through some new TUC fanfics. And...all of them, really, are continuations of the series. And I'm not against that, really. But I realised, I'm finally, truly and indefinitely perfectly okay with the ending of Code of Claw. I was fine before...but I realised I don't think I could write a "sixth" book for The Underland Chronicles like I used to. So I wrote this instead.
. . .
That Year
by Allie
. . .
Staring at the rushing water out the spigot, Gregor took a deep, shaky breath. He splashed some water on his face and yanked the knobs back into place so that the flow stopped abruptly. The bathroom was silent aside from his angry, ragged breathing.
Gregor felt himself sinking to the cracked linoleum bathroom floor, his head in his hands.
Dry sobs racked his body. What was happening? That rager feeling was already fading, wasn't it? No…no, it couldn't. It was the clearest memory that Gregor had of the Underland, that terrible, warring…wonderful, welcoming…that place that was his home.
Buzzing through his veins. Fragmenting vision. Rager senses.
Gregor pushed them away. He still had the scars, didn't he? He still had that photograph. He still had the images of gore and love and stupor that would never leave his mind, even if he lived a thousand lives.
Closing his eyes, Gregor let the sorrow creep through him.
. . .
Luxa gazed out a window from her stone suite of the palace. Holding aside the silken red curtains, she let out a sigh. Then she let them drop, and she trudged toward a sofa in the room. After collapsing onto the soft cushion, Luxa squeezed her eyes shut tight. This was not right. A princess, a queen, should not be upset over a little thing like a boy.
But Gregor was more than that. Even if what they had had was just a…what had Gregor once called it? A "crush"? Even if it was just a crush, Luxa missed him. He was her friend, her confidant. She had Aurora, she had Ripred, she had the council and Regalia.
None of them were Gregor.
And her city was still in ruins.
There was a way to fix it, and she would take that path, but it would take months, maybe years. Regalia was worth her time, though Luxa had not wanted to spend her life rebuilding her world. She had always dreamed of leading it instead of fixing it.
Maybe leading would have to wait. She would have to build up the bridges between her kind and others', fight battles, and lengthen Regalia's borders and territories once again.
No other thoughts, no distractions, could deter her. She would get it done.
And she would not think of Gregor or of the life she would have led had her parents not been killed, or had the last year that consumed her life never happened.
. . .
"I see yellow…I see green…I see blue fogs!" Boots murmured to herself, lining her plastic toys up on the arm of the beat up sofa in the apartment living room. She knocked them carelessly to the ground, her brown eyes filling with tears. "Where are the fogs now?" she wondered.
Boots toddled off of the couch and into the kitchen, tumbling toward the cookie jar. Sucking on a chocolate chip one, she wondered, "Where good cookie? Dulcie give me good cookie."
On the floor, a cockroach scuttled quickly by. It paused to wave a feeler knowingly at the three-year-old. Boots patted it feebly on the head. "Hi, leetle bug. Where beeg bug?" It scurried away from her once she lifted her hand, and she stared after it.
Boots sat down on the yellowed floor, dropping her cookie. "Beeg bug gone?"
. . .
Cold wind bit through Gregor's jacket as he stumbled through Central Park. That rock. So far, so close. Gregor sat down next to it on the damp grass, eyes trained on the cold stone. November, freezing November. Where was the snow? Where was the cruel weather?
Gregor deserved the cruel weather. Snow, sleet, hail.
He couldn't even bring himself to push, just barely shove, at that rock. It was right there. So close.
If he wanted to, Gregor could just up and go down. Revisit all his friends, his life, down there in the Underland. Why couldn't he bring himself to go back? It would be so easy.
All of his problems would be solved, wouldn't they? He wouldn't have to hold back. No hiding the scars he'd acquired, no lying about pneumonia or how his father had been living in California, or even kidnapped by aliens. No more anything. Just possible happiness.
Only he didn't have Ares. The Underland was nothing without Ares.
They hadn't gotten along so well at the beginning, he knew that. But they'd…bonded. They'd become closer than just friends. They were one. Walking around all the time, Gregor knew that half of him was missing, no matter what he was doing. In the Underland, he would never be able to escape that Ares was gone.
Here, in the Overland, couldn't he start over?
. . .
Soft fur. Angry personality. Split second, and his victim would be dead. Dire consequences to those who crossed him.
Was that all Ripred amounted to now? He was older than he'd once been, yes. No longer in his prime. Did he still have what it really took?
That war…all those battles…they had taken so much out of him. How much life was left? The few months of his time had taken too much.
Two scars crossing over his face. Ripred spun around again, attacking the nonexistent enemy. He grunted, then let himself fall to the stony ground of the cave he dwelt in.
It was over, he knew. Everything was over.
Another band of gnawers in the Deadlands with him? Forget it.
He'd wanted to be the leader of the rats. What sort of dream was that? He was close to it, but he was so far from it. Silksharp, his mate, his other pups…Lizzie…even Gregor…gone.
All he had left was Luxa, really. Ripred climbed wearily to his feet, then with gusto, anger, he kicked and fought at the wall, ignoring the pain and damage he was doing to his tail, his paws. What did it matter anymore?
At his age, Ripred probably wouldn't last much longer, anyway.
. . .
Temp waved his antennae at the aggravating star-nosed mole during the conferencing. He was not going to say anything, he was not, but the creature would not stop belting out annoying ideas in its odd, odd language. Temp had not hated it at first, he had not, but now, it was getting slightly off with him. Did not hate usually, Temp did not, did not hate.
This mole was an exception.
Wanted the princess, Temp wanted. The Princess and Tick.
Both were gone, they were.
Tick was never to come back. Temp missed her sorely, and for a moment the obnoxious star-nosed mole left his mind.
The princess could come back, could she not? She was chosen to give time to the crawlers. Need to come back for that, she would, need to come back.
But she already had given them time. Even Temp was wise enough to know such.
No purpose was there for the princess to come back, no purpose.
It didn't stop Temp from wishing she was still riding around on his shell again, though. He was a changed cockroach now, and nothing would return him to the land of his wants. Temp turned back to the annoying star-nosed mole and waved his feelers some more, hoping it might catch the drift that its speaking wasn't wanted.
. . .
Lapblood watched her two sleeping pups. They weren't exactly pups anymore, per say. Too old, really. But to her, pups they would stay. That was how Mange had known them. That was the only way Mange would ever know them.
Picking through her silvery fur, Lapblood mourned for her lost love. She mourned for all the lives lost in the terrible battle against fate over the past year.
Sixclaw and Flyfur slumbered on, unaware of their mother's watchful eye.
It was all done, she saw. The War of Time was finished, and she had chosen the correct side overall. Lapblood was not sorry for what she had done over the recent months. Through everything, the Underland had prevailed, and she'd had a hand in it, no matter how big or small.
If Ripred couldn't handle everything he'd set himself in for, Lapblood knew she would step in and help. Young Queen Luxa was barely a pup herself, after all, and with Ripred as a bond even, she still had a lot to do, and so did the Peacemaker himself.
Letting her eyes close, Lapblood let the feeling of finality wash over her. It was just a new page in her life. All that had happened before was finished, and she wasn't going to bring it back in her thoughts, her words, her memories. She wanted it to be as if, maybe, that nothing had ever happened.
It wouldn't bring back Mange, but it was something of a start.
. . .
Her hands hurt from the roughness of how hard she had been scrubbing them. They still felt like the Underland. Grace blinked hard a few times and scaled the tap water a notch hotter. Poured some more soap onto her arms, wrists, fingers.
The Underland feeling had to diminish. There was no question about it.
Grace had never wanted to wind up down there in the first place, had she? No. No, no, no. That place had taken her baby and her son and her husband and her little girl and almost killed them all. It had almost killed her.
Scrub harder.
If it had been up to her, they never would even be living in New York City. Her parents had raised her in Albany.
Gregor was depressed now, wasn't he? Barely talking to her anymore. He wanted to go back. But she wouldn't let him.
Lizzie consumed in her puzzles. Murmuring about Ripred, her favorite giant rat.
Boots teetered around, asking if she could ride another bat. She never would relent, unless age could take its toll.
Even Grace's own husband wouldn't stop talking about the Underland. She knew he missed it.
But she did not.
And they were never going back.
Scrub harder.
Grace dried her hands hastily on an old faded towel, then grabbed the kitchen phone to dial the airport about plane tickets. Virginia, here we come. She listened to the recording and pressed two as instructed, then was promptly placed on hold. If we can afford it…
. . .
Pressing his palm to the freezing rock, Gregor whispered, "Goodbye," to it. To the Underland. To Ares, Luxa, Vikus, the life he'd had and could have had.
It was over.
Gregor slowly pulled the creased picture of him and Luxa from his pocket. Solemn but smiling. He ran his thumb over it, then shoved it hastily back into his jeans pocket. That was one memory he could not throw away. Gregor would never lose, misplace, throw away this photograph. It was his.
Once back in his little storage closet bedroom, Gregor placed the photo at the bottom of a cardboard box, then tossed in some books and old action figures on top.
He bit his lip, then swallowed the feeling. Finished. It was all finished. That year had changed him. It had changed everybody, hadn't it, though?
This'll be a good story to tell the grandchildren, Gregor thought bitterly, heaving the box up on a high shelf. Finale. The end of a play, a book, a movie.
Memories and scars were all he had left. And even those would fade, eventually.
Gregor swallowed, his throat dry as he said for the last time, "Goodbye."
That year entwined with the Underland was over, finished, done. It was no use to ponder in the past any longer. The past was not the present or the future, and there was no use to dwell in it.
Gregor let go.